Long-term public art has a greater responsibility to the community, to the public, than regular gallery art. Gallery art can afford to be crazier, more acid, more painful, more anti-social, and more just plain bad, because our experience of it is temporary. But long-term public art, like architecture, is something we have to live with. And usually we, the public, have no say over what public art or architecture that is. I do not mean that we want public art or architecture with no teeth. (Bland, saccharine, toothless stuff is one of the major failings of public art.) Only that it should be a companionable beast.

A key aspect of public art that’s often left out is the public. Usually, the public is not involved in choosing public art; that decision is given to small committees or individuals or private businesses. Individuals or small groups are often best for selecting great art, so I’m not trying to change the selection process.

That said, public art — even works we hate — should be given a chance. Years. Sometimes it takes a while for something to grow on you. Sometimes it takes a while just to figure something out. Sometimes something that looked cool at first becomes trite.

But after giving public art a fair shot, the public has the right to impeach bad public art. I don’t mean for bad public art to be destroyed. Just removed. Perhaps some other community would benefit from some quality time with it. And new public art should take its place.

So, dear reader, I’m soliciting your nominations of the Worst Public Art in New England. Please e-mail your choice — preferably with photos — to gcook30@hotmail.com. I’ll share the nominations at my blog, the New England Journal of Aesthetic Research — and then select one work that is particularly awful. And launch a campaign to have it removed. Please join me in this noble, democratic, community-improvement effort.

Alternative universe In the 1930s and '40s, Boston painters developed a moody, mythic realism. They mixed social satire with depictions of street scenes, Biblical scenes, and mystical symbolic narratives, all of it darkened by the shadow of the Great Depression and World War II.

Purposeful randomness "How do I absorb all this beauty," Leslie Schomp writes in Diary (2010), an open cloth notebook resting on a wood stand.

A walk on the wild side Everyone looks so weary in Howard Yezerski Gallery's gritty documentary photos of Boston's dear departed Combat Zone from 1969 to 1978. The year's still young, but this glimpse into our past from Roswell Angier, Jerry Berndt, and John Goodman may be one of the best shows of 2010.

Subject bias "Objects of Wonder" is a mixed bag of a show, which is what it sets out to be.

The outside world For some time now, Providence artist Adrianne Evans has been mulling natural processes in her art.

Ravishing beauty The wreckage at the end of Modernist art's main thrust is the starting point for "Pat Steir: Drawing Out of Line," a four-decade retrospective of the New Yorker's drawings at the RISD Museum.

Re-structuring Three large oil paintings overwhelm the lobby at the Portland Museum of Art, introducing the show "Division and Discovery: Recent Works by Frederick Lynch," a beautiful and meditative collection found on the fourth floor of the museum.

Deep blue If you’re going to explore the cosmos, better do it at night.

Tattoo you Dr. Lakra is no more a real doctor than is Dr. Dre or Dr. Demento. The 38-year-old Mexican tattoo artist’s real name is Jerónimo López Ramírez. As for “lakra,” it means “delinquent.” Or so I thought.

Cowboy junkie England in the mid-’80s, gray and depressed by Thatcherism and the Smiths, wasn’t a place folks typically dressed to the nines in ten-gallon hats, bolo ties, and Nudie shirts. But such were the sartorial choices made those days by the members of the Mekons.